The Real Time host began his defense of the former anchor by saying “will miss him, and a lot of other people will too,” prior to lambasting MSNBC for suggesting his resignation following accusations of sexual misconduct towards journalist Laura Bassett.

“MSNBC used to run this thing: this is who we are. Well, I didn’t like who you were this week, and I don’t think a lot of people who work there liked this either, and I think this ‘cancel culture’ is a cancer on progressivism,” Maher insisted. “Liberals always have to fight a two-front war. Republicans only have to fight the Democrats; Democrats have to fight the Republicans, and each other.”

Th host argued that Chris Matthews made a poor “analogy” when he compared Bernie Sanders, who is a Jewish man, to the Nazis. “I hope the victims got some closure,” the comedian joked.

Maher also mentioned how Matthews was nearly labeled a “Klansman” for mixing up Jaime Harrison and Tim Scott, two African-American politicians; and that people were not fair to him for saying that he was being “mean” to Elizabeth Warren when pressing her on why people should believe Mike Bloomberg’s female accusers over him.

The HBO host then controversially targeted Laura Bassett, the journalist who accused Matthews of sexually harassing her when she was a guest on his program.

In the GQ essay, Bassett described how Matthews stared her down while she was in the makeup chair and remarked, “Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?” before adding, “Keep putting makeup on her, I’ll fall in love with her.” Another time, she recalls Matthews commenting—again while she was in the makeup chair—“Make sure you wipe this [makeup] off her face after the show. We don’t make her up so some guy at a bar can look at her like this.”

According to Maher, Matthews “said some things that are kind of creepy to women. You know, I just, guys are married for a million years, they want to flirt for two seconds. He said to somebody, Laura Bassett, four years ago, she’s in makeup, he said, ‘Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?’ Yes, it is creepy. She said, ‘I was afraid to name him at the time out of fear of retaliation. I’m not afraid anymore.’ Thank you, Rosa Parks. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ! I guess my question is: Do you wonder how Democrats lose?”

One of the show’s guests, the anti-#MeToo writer Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic, chimed in to further mock Bassett, saying “How fragile can one woman be?” while insinuating that she was only booked on Matthews’ show because “she probably looked good on camera.”

Maher concluded the discussion with a question: “Is she a compliment-victim or a compliment-survivor?”
This morning, after Maher’s show aired, Bassett fired back at the host on Twitter, writing, “Hey @billmaher how’s this for fragile: Fuck you.”

You can check out the segment from last night’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher above and Bassett’s response below.

People are really outraged that a rich as hell 74-yr-old man had to retire after being called out for 20 years of objectifying women in the workplace? This is not about me, and if your inclination is to attack me, consider putting that energy into therapy or anger management.